On November 28, Barckhausen and I camped in the cañadon or valley of River Deseado, a swampy, reedy spot, tenanted by great numbers of upland geese, flocks of Chiloe widgeon (Mareca sibilatrix) and brown pintails. I also observed here the rosy-billed duck (Metopiana peposaca), the blue-winged teal (Querquedula cyanoptera), and what I took to be the red shoveller (Spatula platalea). But this last-named bird I did not shoot, and so I cannot speak with absolute certainty upon the point. Besides these, I saw flamingoes (Phœnicopterus ignipalliatus) and the black-necked swan (Cygnis nigricollis). A flock of parrots were flying about the heights, but of these I was unable to procure a specimen. The reedy pools and backwaters in this cañadon were, without exception, the most glorious paradise of wildfowl that I have ever seen.
On our way back from the River Deseado I secured the first Rhea darwini shot during the expedition. With the exception of wild cattle, the ostrich is the most difficult to procure of Patagonian game. These birds are always on the alert, and generally make off when you are still a mile away. They never pause save upon commanding ground. The most usual method of obtaining them is to run them down with dogs or to bolas them after the manner of the Indians and Gauchos on horseback. They are indeed a quarry well worthy of the attention of the still-hunter. The male is sometimes killed with a rifle when attending to the chickens, towards whom—with the exception of laying the eggs—he stands in place of a mother. At such times he will, when approached, pretend to be wounded and limp away with wings outspread to attract the hunters after him. An ostrich when shot through the body will always run from thirty to forty yards before dropping. This first ostrich, which I shot, was about four hundred yards away, and I should not have secured him had he not allowed me to get my range with a couple of preliminary shots. Down he went at last, and, immediately afterwards, as I was congratulating myself, appeared an ostrich running low through the grass. I thought it was the one I had shot and struck back for my horse. While I was galloping after the fast-disappearing bird, I rode right on to the first bird, which had been shot through the lungs. On measurement I found him to be five feet in height and three feet high at the shoulder.
The greatest number of adult ostriches I ever saw together was seven. This in a cañadon off the River Deseado. At a later date I saw forty-two together, but this included many small and immature birds.
The long-necked game of Patagonia is difficult to stalk owing to their having such a field of vision. The ruse of tying up one's horse in full view gained me many a guanaco, but was quite a useless trick in the case of ostriches. The Cruzado was by this time an A1 shooting-horse. He would stand anywhere and wait my return, he would also allow me to fire quite close to him, but he would never allow any white object to be put upon his back. If this was done, he would at once rear and throw himself back.
There is one thing which strikes me forcibly with regard to Patagonia. Here is small vestige of the elder peoples, and little of any older civilisations.[19] Even in the hearts of deserts in the old world are to be found traces of ancient cities, where men lived long ages ago. But nothing that bears farthest resemblance to a ruin, to the "one stone laid upon another" that tells of man's settled home, exists in Patagonia. Yet though the ruined cities of other countries are old, Patagonia is older yet. The nomad tribes have roamed here through the centuries, leaving the grass to grow-over their old camp-fires, but never altering or marking with any permanent mark the face of this old land. No, though Patagonia is in a sense the oldest of all, for here we come face to face with prehistoric times—the skeletons of the greater beasts, the flint weapons of primitive man with practically nothing save the years to intervene. A lean humanity, untouched by aught save nature, has run out its appointed course until very recent years; and there is little to testify to its wanderings but the brown trail of generations of footsteps, which ten years of disuse would blot out for ever. You cannot there gaze over the ruins of a once populous city and say, "Here lived a dead people." No, you can but think by lonely river or lagoon, "The bygone Indians may here have had their camp, or the greater beasts their lair." The netted lakes, the gaunt Cordillera, the limitless pampa and the unceasing wind—that is all. Cañadon follows cañadon, pampa succeeds pampa, you have the Atlantic to the east of you and the Andes to the west of you, and between, in all the vast country, beside the Indian trail, the only paths are game-tracks!
On December 2 we were again short of meat, therefore Jones and I went hunting. These early mornings upon the high ground above the lake will never, I think, be forgotten by any of us who shared them. It was a vivid and pulsating life, and the hunting was carried on under conditions unique to Patagonia.
In the slight depression through which the River Fenix winds, herds of guanaco were to be found, each point containing any number between half a dozen to forty head. On the morning I write of we were not long in finding our game. A large herd, including several guanaco chicos, were to be seen from the heights dotted about upon the faded greenish grass of the valley beneath us. The sun, newly risen, had just begun to suck up the balls of white mist that rolled up and down the cuplike hollows, and as the light strengthened it brought out the gold and white colouring of the guanacos feeding in the valley. The horse I was riding had done no work for three weeks, and was fit to gallop for his life.
The herds were in a place quite inaccessible to stalking, but it was certain that they would break for the hills to the south. Immediately they saw us they took to flight in the direction we expected, and we dashed away to cut them off. The Patagonian horse soon begins to take an interest of his own in galloping game. We arrived within two hundred yards of where the herds had begun to straggle in a long line up the bare side of a range of round bald-headed hummocks, but we were not in time to get a shot before they disappeared over the sky-line. When we reached the top of the hills the guanacos were, of course, nowhere to be seen, but after an hour's tracking we again located them among the hummocks in a depression filled with dry thorn. This time we separated and Jones showed himself at the far end of the gorge, while I made a circuit and lay down upon the top of a hill towards which I thought they were likely to break. This they did the instant they saw Jones, who got a shot, breaking the leg of one. I killed another as they passed. We jumped upon our horses to overtake Jones' wounded guanaco, that was keeping up with the herd.
